Mandala
by liketolaugh
Summary: For the 221st night countdown run by lenaleelee17 on Tumblr. Day 2: Science Department (The story of how Johnny started making the exorcists' uniforms.)
1. Day 1: Favorite Character

**A/N: Hi! *bright smile* So it's that time again - chapter 221 is coming up, and lenaleelee17 agreed to coordinate another countdown, with the same themes. Today's submission is a little late - I have a MAJOR project/presentation due tomorrow (like, graduation requirement level) and tomorrow's probably will be too. But still. *shrug***

 **Title: Mandala**

 **Author: liketolaugh**

 **Rating: T**

 **Pairings: None**

 **Genre: Friendship/Family**

 **Warnings: None**

 **Summary: For the 221st night countdown run by lenaleelee17 on Tumblr. Day 1: Favorite character (Allen Walker)**

 **Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.**

* * *

The air was humid and stifling, with the smell of sweat heavy in the air, magnified by the press of body heat. Overtop of that, the stench of alcohol was enough to make Allen dizzy. The lighting was poor, but the laughter of drunken men and the giggling of the girls painted a vivid enough picture.

Another day, another dive.

Allen sighed, tucked neatly away in a corner of the bar, out of sight and out of mind, head resting on his folded arms. He was done working for the day, and he felt tired and sore.

He was waiting for Cross to finish flirting with the barmaid and get them a room, but that could take hours, especially if she gave in. (And she would, he could already tell. She was giving Cross that _look.)_

Allen might need to find a room of his own tonight, unless Cross passed out drunk, which he looked to be well on his way to doing. In which case Allen would have to stay up and make sure he didn't choke on his own vomit.

The eleven-year-old exorcist apprentice sighed again, the familiar ache of loneliness settling deep in his chest.

Abruptly, Allen decided that no one would miss him if he slipped out for a few minutes, and he stood up. Using his small body and a very short lifetime of practice, he passed through the crowd and went outside.

Out of the run-down bar, it wasn't so suffocating, but in the middle of summer, it was still uncomfortably warm, even at night. The ground was wet with the same rain that colored the scent of the air outside, and Allen took a deep breath, tipping his head back to try and enjoy it.

A few minutes passed, and eventually, Allen moved from the front step and picked up a stick lying nearby before returning to his place.

He paused, considering the stick and the slick ground in front of him, and then, finally, scratched one long, firm, straight line in the thick mud.

Allen contemplated that, too, expression pensive, and then he started to draw - circles and lines of varying sizes and lengths, all across the one long line. In a quiet, emotion-cracked voice, he started to speak.

"Once upon a time, there was a man. This man had a woman he loved very, very much-"

It was a story, one Mana had told him many times before. A silly, stupid story - Mana used to tell it just to laugh at the nasty faces Allen would make in reply.

Allen's eyes burned.

"But one day, something happened. The man sat under a tree, and when the woman returned, he was gone. In his place were two tiny babies."

A silly, stupid story.

Allen kept telling himself the familiar story, ignoring the way his voice cracked around the words. Several times, Allen had to draw a new line to accommodate extra words, but he never so much as wavered.

Allen had been with Cross for nearly a year now, and he still wasn't completely used to him. Cross was strange, and volatile in a different way from Mana, one that Allen was pretty sure was far more dangerous. Allen didn't understand him.

Also unlike Mana, Cross spent money like a rich man, even though they couldn't afford it. He'd made it clear from the start that Allen was expected to make a portion of it himself, and Allen was fine with that - he'd been earning his keep for as long as he could remember. In the streets, his own efforts were all that was keeping him alive. In the circus, he'd done chores, and with Mana, he'd taken care of the insane man on his bad days.

So Allen, he was perfectly fine with earning his keep.

Except, things had changed.

Cross demanded a lot of money, almost more than Allen could make. He also needed a lot more food than he used to, and that amount was almost equal to what Cross demanded, and he hadn't yet worked out a way to make enough to both get enough food for himself _and_ get what Cross demanded.

That meant that he either got hit by Cross, or he went hungry. Most days, Allen chose to go hungry, because he was used to that, but he was _tired_ of being hit, even if Cross was more gentle about it than, say, Cosimo. (Cosimo was an asshole. Not to say that Cross wasn't, but Cosimo was worse.)

"And so the woman raised the two boys for the rest of their lives," Allen continued softly, shifting to one side as he heard the creak of the door behind him. Some of the men must have run out of luck and decided to leave.

"Brat, what the fuck do you think you're doing out here?"

Allen started and half-turned to look up at Cross, who was swaying drunkenly and glaring at him, with wide eyes. "Master!"

Cross scowled at him accusingly and made as if to speak, and then looked past him, gaze landing on the code. Instinctively, Allen made as if to hide it - that code was _his_ and _Mana's,_ and it was none of Cross' business - but when he caught a hint of something fiery and dangerous in Cross' eyes, he froze.

"What the _fuck_ is that?" Cross hissed. Timcanpy fluttered out of wherever he'd been hiding and landed on Allen's head as the white-haired boy leaned back, eyes widening in alarm as his mind screamed _predator!_

"It's nothing!" Allen tried to snap, but it came out too frightened. "It doesn't matter!"

Cross almost seemed to blow up at that, inflating dangerously, and Allen instinctively tried to make himself look as small as possible.

But a moment later, Cross visibly forced himself to calm down, and growled, low and frightening in a way only _truly_ dangerous people could manage, " _Never_ let me see you drawing that again."

"Okay!" Allen agreed quickly, voice a little higher-pitched than he would have liked. "Okay!"

Timcanpy, seemingly in agreement, flew down from Allen's head and swept the code away with a few swipes of his tail, as if it were something secret and deadly that they were better off pretending to have never seen at all.

Allen didn't understand.

Cross took a few deep breaths, and then turned around roughly, crossing his arms and scowling blackly at the inside of the bar. "The barmaid agreed to feed you, brat, so get your butt in here before she changes her mind."

"O-okay," Allen whispered, and Cross swept inside. Shakily, Allen got up and hurried after him, knowing how impatient he tended to get.

Allen didn't ever use that code again, didn't even let himself think about it, and in the end, he forgot it - until he saw it again, four years later.

* * *

 **I tried to make it as different from last time's as I could - don't want things to get stale, y'know? *shrug* See you tomorrow! Thanks for reading, and please review!**


	2. Day 2: Science Department

**A/N: Argh! I'm sorry, this has been a really busy week for me. This is a day and a half late, next chapter's half a day late, and the one after... I don't know yet. *sigh***

 **Thank you to AngelHeartsX, Hailwic, Candy Crackpot, and Lena-luvs-cats for reviewing!**

 **Title: Mandala**

 **Author: liketolaugh**

 **Rating: T**

 **Pairings: None**

 **Genre: Friendship/Family**

 **Warnings: None**

 **Summary: For the 221st night countdown run by lenaleelee17 on Tumblr. Day 1: Favorite character (Allen Walker)**

 **Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.**

* * *

 **Day 2: Science Department**

* * *

Johnny's first day at the Order was a blur of introductions and explanations. Not much stood out from that day - Johnny had mostly just been really confused.

It was on his third day of work that Johnny met his first exorcist. He'd been working with an older scientist, Danny, and then the last thing he'd expected to see walked into the lab: a small, slight preteen girl, with dark green hair up in pigtails and downcast violet eyes, and an ill-fitting outfit to boot.

"Um," Johnny said.

Danny, though, put his supplies down and smiled at the girl, tired but welcoming. "Lenalee," he greeted. "Welcome home."

The girl, apparently Lenalee, smiled shyly. "Thanks, Danny. Who's this?"

"I'm Johnny," Johnny said before Danny could, giving Lenalee a friendly smile. "Johnny Gill. New recruit for the Science section."

Lenalee smiled and shook his hand. "It's lovely to meet you, Johnny. When did you get here?"

"Three days ago," Johnny admitted with a nervous chuckle. "What about you? How long are you going to be here?" He was a little surprised that any part of the Order could bring family in, but maybe exceptions were made for high-ranking members.

Lenalee laughed; it sounded a little strained. "The rest of my life, I suppose."

...Huh?

Danny let Johnny splutter for a few moments, confused and alarmed, before he took pity on him. "Lenalee's an exorcist, Johnny. The Dark Boots' accommodator. She's been here for the last six years. You haven't seen her because she was on a mission when you arrived."

Johnny's mind was thrown into turmoil as his mental image of tough, fearsome exorcists was shattered by the fragile-looking girl in front of him. There was no way, there was _absolutely no way_ that the Order would let her fight those… His mind flinched away from the memory of the only time he'd seen an akuma, and for a long time, he scrambled for words, while Lenalee's expression grew increasingly concerned. What finally came out of his mouth was, "Your uniform doesn't fit."

Lenalee blinked, visibly startled, and then blushed deeply, looking down at her long skirt, which hung badly around her almost nonexistent hips, and tugging at it ruefully. "I know," she said quietly. "It's too big."

"My family makes clothes," Johnny heard himself say, most of his mind still picturing the little girl facing down the giant monsters that woke him up with nightmares sometimes. "I can make you one that fits."

Lenalee's whole demeanor changed, like a rainbow after a storm. "Really? Would you?"

"Of course," Johnny assured her. It was just one uniform, after all, and the least he could do.

Danny, though, was studying him thoughtfully.

"You know," he said cautiously, looking a little reluctant to hope, "Lenalee's not the only one with a bad-fitting uniform. The guys we got now are no good with kids' clothes."

Johnny's heart dropped (there were more child exorcists?) but he kept his smile. "Of course," he said brightly. "I can make clothes for all of them."

Danny smiled genuinely. "Glad to hear it, Johnny."

* * *

Three weeks later, an angry Japanese teen - Kanda Yuu, fourteen, Johnny had seen him but never spoken to him - stormed up to him, grumpy as ever, with his navy eyes cast to the ground. He wasn't wearing his uniform; instead, it was tucked under his arm.

"Hello, Kanda," Johnny greeted, with a slightly tentative smile.

Kanda didn't bother returning the polite greeting. Instead, he kept glaring at the ground and said abruptly, "My uniform tore. Lenalee told me to talk to you about it."

Johnny was caught briefly off-guard, but soon enough he smiled again. "Oh, sure, I can fix that." He'd fall a little behind on his work, but Danny had been quick to assure him that the exorcists came first, always. (And Johnny wasn't entirely sure that that was just a practical thing, either.) He reached. "Here, let me see."

Kanda grudgingly handed over the uniform and crossed his arms impatiently as Johnny opened the carefully folded uniform to inspect it.

The sides were torn wide open, fearsome, bloodstained slashes that made him flinch and shoot Kanda a worried look. Kanda glared at him, daring him to say a word. Johnny didn't.

Then he found a different kind of hole, an open seam starting at the armpit and going some way down the side, until it met one of the sickening, bloodsoaked slashes. "What's this?"

Kanda shrugged. "I overstretched it," he muttered. "Happens all the time."

Johnny blinked, mind already turning over the problem with an automatic sort of tenacity. "I can fix that."

Two weeks later, all the exorcists received uniforms that were more flexible and resistant to tearing. They were also sturdier; Johnny wasn't sure how much that would help, but it made him feel a little better.

* * *

The next time someone saw him about the uniforms, it was Lenalee again. The shirt and skirt were both torn, though for different reasons - there was a bloody gash in the material of the shirt, and Johnny could see bandages peeking out from under the casual one she was wearing now. The skirt, on the other hand, was ripped… up a seam.

"Did the new material not work?" Johnny worried, carefully neither mentioning nor thinking about the way Lenalee winced every time she moved.

"The new material is wonderful," Lenalee assured him earnestly. She ducked her head. "Just… I kick a lot, and…"

"The skirt's too long," Johnny realized, with a sinking feeling. He hadn't thought about combat styles at all; the last thing he wanted was for the uniform to get in the way. Mind working to try and remember the combat styles of the other exorcists, he continued, "I'm sorry. Would a shorter skirt help?"

Lenalee peeked up at him and nodded hesitantly.

Johnny made her a shorter skirt.

* * *

Johnny was _glad_ when the exorcists started coming to him with requests; he was glad he could help, even if just like this.

God knew they needed all the help they could get.

* * *

 **So I didn't put quite as much depth into it as I generally would have preferred, but hell, it could've been worse. Thanks for reading, and please review!**


	3. Day 3: Clan of Noah

**A/N: I'll freely admit that I'm not fond of coming up with Noah meta. *scowl* It's hard, since they're not my usual point of focus and besides which we don't know shit about them. (Though to be fair, sometimes it seems like we don't know anything about anything...)**

 **Thank you to Candy Crackpot, AngelHeartsX, IncredibleIdiosyncrasies, and karina001 for reviewing!**

 **Title: Mandala**

 **Author: liketolaugh**

 **Rating: T**

 **Pairings: None**

 **Genre: Friendship/Family**

 **Warnings: None**

 **Summary: For the 221st night countdown run by lenaleelee17 on Tumblr. Day 1: Favorite character (Allen Walker)**

 **Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.**

* * *

 **Day 3: Clan of Noah**

* * *

At first, Tyki was just running away.

He'd been alone back then - it was just him and the trains. This was before everything. It was before he was a Noah, before Sheryl was, before he knew about the Holy War and everything it entailed and meant. He'd been young and stupid then.

He still felt young and stupid sometimes.

Sheryl chafed at him; he always had. He was overprotective and weirdly affectionate and Tyki hated him and hated that he couldn't _really_ hate him, because Sheryl was just that sort of annoying older brother. ('Bane of my existence' was an affectionate term, really.)

But at first, Tyki was just running away, because he hated politics and how slimy politics made him feel, and his crazy older brother and all the people who loved his crazy older brother. It was annoying.

Then came the Noah.

Road was the first Noah Tyki had ever met, right as he was first starting to transform. It was probably for the best, really, because a travelling hobo in deliberately ugly glasses, well, no one cared about that, so he would have gone through his transformation in a gutter somewhere.

But Road had found him and taken him to an expensive hotel, so he got to suffer through unimaginable agony on an expensive hotel bed instead. Hooray.

On the bright side of things, Road was also there when he finally woke up, to explain things to him, things he already half-knew but needed to be reminded of. While she'd looked like a twelve-year-old girl, he knew she wasn't. And really, he'd wanted the explanation badly enough to take anything he could get.

After he became a Noah, he kept running. He'd been different from most of the other Noah from the start - he'd spent too much time exposed to the main populace, to humans. He'd grown to like them, their idiosyncrasies, their habits and foibles and…

He wasn't so sure what to think anymore.

Unfortunately, running didn't make things any better. It never did; Tyki should have known better. (This was why he felt young and foolish.)

Because he met people. And he met them several times. And then he started meeting them on purpose.

Friends didn't always make things easier, Tyki learned.

But the three of them, the two hard-working adults with little care except for where their meal would come from, and little Eeze with his weak lungs, they grew on Tyki. Like fungus. Or something.

And he started doing things for them. Mysteriously 'finding' money when it looked like things were going to be a little too hard. Getting gifts for Eeze. (He hoped to God Eeze never found out where those silver buttons came from, because he would react very, very badly, and for some reason, the last thing he wanted was to be the cause of a potentially-fatal asthma attack.) Slipping off to threaten people causing the four of them trouble.

It got worse. The three adults, between them, they made a half-decent poker team, only then there was the little cheating exorcist boy, and inexplicably, Tyki grew fond of him, as well.

It didn't stop him from doing his job, but it troubled him; he was growing weak.

And then it _did_ start keeping him from doing his job, and he wasn't sure what to do anymore. Not anymore. So he kept doing what he had always done best, and spent a little time away from the Noah, with the two human men oblivious to the catastrophic war and little Eeze with his silver buttons.

After all this time, Tyki was still running.

* * *

 **Yes, this is painfully short, but like I said, I'm not as fond of the Noah as the main exorcists. *shrug* Thanks for reading, and please review!**


	4. Day 4: Exorcists

**A/N: Well, I was expecting this to go on for a bit longer, but... *shrug* Other employees of the Order thinking about the exorcists is actually one of my favorite things. Also, I get to dump a bunch of headcanons I've been storing up. *chuckle***

 **Thank you to Candy Crackpot, AngelHeartsX, person, and Lena-luvs-cats for reviewing!**

 **Title: Mandala**

 **Author: liketolaugh**

 **Rating: T**

 **Pairings: None**

 **Genre: Friendship/Family**

 **Warnings: None**

 **Summary: For the 221st night countdown run by lenaleelee17 on Tumblr. Day 1: Favorite character (Allen Walker)**

 **Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.**

* * *

 **Day 4: Exorcists**

* * *

Exorcists made the worst patients.

Head Nurse hated to say it, but it was true. Exorcists had a frustrating tendency to come in with horrifying injuries, argue with treatment if it was still at all possible, and then start attempting to leave as soon as they woke up. It was _maddening._

This tendency was universal, and the bane of Head Nurse's existence. Cross would vanish within a few days if there wasn't a woman in the infirmary. Zokalo threatened his way out. Allen would charm them into letting him leave early, and no one believed her when she said so, which meant personally going and dragging him back.

It had been easy to cope with, early in Head Nurse's career, when all of the exorcists were adults. Some of them could be reasoned with, and the rest at least had a basic understanding of their own vulnerability and worth, even if they chose to completely disregard their common sense. (Of which, they clearly had none.)

It was when the _child_ exorcists started to appear that Head Nurse had trouble.

Lenalee was the first Head Nurse had ever encountered below the age of sixteen, and most were over twenty. She first showed up in the infirmary with dispirited eyes and legs that were bruised and scraped, stumbling with exhaustion and trying not to cry. Trying to be brave.

She wasn't there three days before she was taken away again.

Lenalee showed up with distressing regularity, and she was sweet but rarely spoke unless prompted. She always looked sad, and for the first two years, her legs were perpetually covered in bruises and scrapes in various states of healing. (Human legs, after all, weren't meant to smash through metal, augmented by Innocence or not.) Head Nurse looked after her the best she could, but there was only so much even she could do for a patient with little will to live, whose only thoughts seemed to be geared toward surviving for just a little longer.

Then there was Kanda, who was vicious and stubborn and saw no need for treatment in the light of his (admittedly remarkable) healing ability, and who insisted that he receive a new mission as soon as the last had been done. Head Nurse decided from the first time she saw him to disregard all arguments and force him to stay until she was satisfied with his recovery, and despite all attempts to change her mind, she'd stuck with that since then.

There was Daisya, mischievous and hyper and with a special hatred for bed rest and a need for constant action. Allen, the aforementioned troublesome charmer. Lavi, who was some unholy combination of the two. Timothy, who seemed to forget that he was injured as soon as he woke up the first time after treatment and always eager to get back to work.

All of these godforsaken children shared a mentality which was lacking in the adult exorcists, a certain disregard for themselves that came from repeated reinforcement, not a deliberate decision to take matters into their own hands.

Because Head Nurse was not oblivious to the influence the Order tended to have on the younger exorcists. There was no reasonable way to expect, really, that they could tell them, over and over, that the fate of the world was in their hands, that they needed to fight for a cause that was almost bigger than they could comprehend, and not expect it to have an effect.

Head Nurse still remembered the early days of her employment, when exorcists were almost always addressed as the accommodator of their Innocence, not as people themselves. There were some days she doubted that the administrators knew the exorcists' names, even though she herself knew every single one. It had been months before Lenalee stopped answering to 'the Dark Boots' accommodator', and longer before Kanda did the same.

But she digressed. The point was, the Order had done everything in its power to make sure that the exorcists knew that they existed only to defeat the akuma. That they knew that that was their only purpose in life.

The older exorcists disregarded this as the foul-hearted rubbish that it was.

The younger exorcists, on the other hand, seemed to believe it.

And it was a difficult patient that believed that their own life had no worth outside of their ability to fight.

* * *

 **Again, short, but... *wave* I'm content with this one, I think. More musing, mostly. Thanks for reading, and please review!**


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